


my heart my hips my body (my love)

by badgerfrog



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Zuko (Avatar), Body Image, Body Worship, Druk is a cat - Freeform, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Food Issues, Grinding, Humor, Insecurity, Languages, M/M, Oral Sex, Painting, Taylor Swift Lyric As Title, Tender Sex, They are married, a semi-attempt at the erotic as defined by audre lorde, i didn't really ever listen to taylor swift before zukka... thank you zukka swifties i owe you a lot, partly inspired by "silk sheets (not so) silent mornings" by egeria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28952190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerfrog/pseuds/badgerfrog
Summary: Zuko's body changes over the years.[In which Zuko reflects on his insecurities and relationship with food, gets painted nude by Sokka, and then they have sex.]
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 184





	my heart my hips my body (my love)

**Author's Note:**

> ✧ update!! i made a playlist for this fic, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2agUgmhqesFTepi1jqNjSV?si=HoGtizPbS9OBuJlK4LJLnw)! it's relatively in order w/ the storyline i think but you can also shuffle it if you want : ) ✧
> 
> just as a warning, this does partly center around zuko's body image after gaining weight in adulthood, and his unhealthy food/exercise habits as a teenager. there's not an explicit eating disorder involved but if that is triggering to you in any way, please click away <3
> 
> huge thanks to [silk sheets, (not so) silent mornings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28705116) by [egeria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egeria) for opening my eyes to the power of zukka married in college feat chubby!zuko. big inspiration for this fic and i highly recommend their work :D
> 
> i've been wanting to write something for ages where sokka uses zuko as a model for his art. that ended up mixing with some ideas about zuko's cultural heritage; and i saw a post a while back about how bojack horseman (which i have not seen) is one of the only shows that has had a character gain weight as a positive thing because their life improved, which reminded me of how in s3 after returning to the fire nation zuko's life sucks and he looks really scrawny, and somehow i ended up here. i hope you enjoy!
> 
> definitions for non-english words are in the end notes.

If you asked Zuko, he wouldn’t be able to tell you the exact moment when it started.

『 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ 』

After his mother was forced to leave, constant stress and competition in his father’s house had made it hard for him to eat.

For Ursa, cooking was practically an art form. Being married to Ozai meant that there were hired hands to do everything for them, but Zuko had seen many arguments between his parents where his mother insisted that if she could not do anything else in the house, she at least wanted to cook. Even at his young age, Zuko could tell that in America, so different from his mother’s home in central Vietnam, cooking provided a sense of familiarity for her.

When she moved out, he missed her food: the xôi mặn he would take to school; bánh bèo dipped in nước mắm he would eat by the dozen; the bún bò Huế she would spend hours cooking to feed him by hand when he was sick. But it wasn’t just the food he missed. He missed her steady presence, the hugs before leaving for school in the morning and kisses when he came back in the afternoon, their walks to the pond to feed the ducks, her bedtime stories that lulled him to sleep; the love that had made his father’s hatred seem inconsequential. With her gone, he lost the one unfailing source of support in his life. 

Unlike Ursa, Ozai certainly didn’t care for his son’s appearance at the dinner table — if anything, he disliked it. Mealtimes meant sharp jabs at his performance in school; insults about his abilities compared to Azula; or, on the worst days, all sorts of taunts about him and his mother. He began to associate food with cruelty, and missed meals more often than he attended them, preferring to stay in his room or practice his taolu. Add in Ozai’s obsession with his son’s wushu ability, and Zuko as a teenager — though well-muscled for his age — was scrawny, almost gaunt.

Moving in with Uncle in his mid-teens made a difference, and Iroh certainly made sure that Zuko was well-fed — but it was difficult to break the eating habits he’d formed over the years, and the added stressors of Ozai’s trial and applying to university certainly hadn’t helped. He avoided the school cafeteria too — the stares and whispers about his scar, another form of cruelty, weren’t worth the trouble. 

He didn’t have a table to sit at either, what with Mai and Ty Lee going to a girls-only private school, not the public school he went to, so he went as long as he could without setting foot in the cafeteria. Instead, he found a space on the edge of the campus basically empty except for Jet, who occasionally showed up to smoke. (He tried to offer Zuko a hit a few times and strike up conversation, but eventually stopped after Zuko refused to talk.) But getting there and to class after took twenty minutes out of his half-hour lunch break, so he returned home every day with the lunch Iroh had packed him only half-eaten.

But regardless, Iroh persisted in feeding Zuko three meals a day no matter how many times he picked at his food. Forming steady friendships at school had helped immensely as well — he had a table to sit at in the cafeteria, and if anyone said anything about his scar, Toph and Katara made sure they never did again. Senior year was even better for him: after months of skirting around each other, he and Sokka started dating after they both signed to go to the same university.

His enduring friendships, relationship with Sokka, home with Uncle Iroh, and weekly appointments with an _extremely_ good therapist gave him a sense of stability over the years. It had felt strange at first to not live in a constant state of fear — but eventually, he settled into it. That stability allowed him to re-evaluate his relationship with food, and slowly, he started to eat what and when he wanted, no matter what other stress was going on in his life.

Being at university and married to Sokka had also done wonders for his mental health. Now a junior in college, he was happier than ever, living in a small apartment with Sokka off-campus, pursuing his degree in writing while Sokka worked on his major in engineering and minor in studio art.

He’d shared stories with Sokka about what meals were like with Ozai, so Sokka made sure that their table was inviting. There were often fresh flowers from Ty Lee’s garden in a pitcher set on top of a table runner from Sokka’s grandmother; they complemented the floral placemats Zuko bought from a yard sale. It was a honey-brown round table (secondhand off Craigslist), with no seat at the head like there had been in the strict hierarchy of Ozai’s house. Instead of fearing sitting at the dinner table, Zuko now looked forward to it — to the meals he and Sokka would eat together, sharing what happened during their day, their cat Druk perched on the chair next to him or resting in his lap; and to dinners with the rest of their found family gathered round the table.

So Zuko ate, and he enjoyed it. He came to love food again — not just the meals he ate at the table, but the pints of ice cream shared with Sokka while watching shitty rom-coms; mooncakes when he went with Toph to the Asian Student Union’s Mid-Autumn Festival; date nights at the noodle house round the corner, with gyoza and bowls of steaming ramen; akutaq Katara and Sokka made, crammed together in their little kitchen; and most surprising of all: Uncle Iroh found a notebook in his attic, scrawled with his mother’s recipes she’d brought with her when she’d immigrated. With Uncle, he practiced cooking them, tasted the flavors from his childhood he’d never been able to quite replicate until now, and vividly remembered the eloquence with which mother had been able to communicate her love with the food she made.

A lot of therapy sessions had also helped him work through his substitution of exercise in place of eating. He still enjoyed wushu and wrestling with Sokka. He walked plenty around campus, would sometimes go for runs with Appa when he and Sokka dog-sat, and did weekly yoga with Aang. He stayed active, but didn’t exercise as obsessively as he had when he was younger — enough to make sure he stayed happy and healthy, not prevent him from it.

But having a healthy relationship with food and exercise now, along with the slower metabolism of an adult rather than a teenager, meant that his body changed.

It was gradual, so at first he didn’t notice. He wasn’t prone to weighing himself, either. He’d thrown out his scale years ago at his therapist’s recommendation, after he moved in with Uncle Iroh, stopped competing in wushu, and didn’t have to stay in weight class anymore, and he and Sokka had never bought one. 

But eventually he realized that his muscles — though still strong — were smaller, less defined. Later, he noticed his hips had gained a padding of fat when he compared them to the nudes he’d sent Sokka a few months ago; a couple weeks after that, he caught sight in the mirror of how his tummy drooped over the top of his boxers a bit when he changed clothes. A few days later, when toweling off after a shower in the evening, he spotted the stretch marks on his thighs and ass. That same night, he stared at his reflection in the mirror after brushing his teeth, noticing for the first time the double chin he had if he tilted his head how it was positioned when he slept and when he and Sokka had sex missionary. In the back of his mind, a voice whispered, asking whether Sokka had noticed these changes too — and if he had, wondering how long he had chosen not to comment; wondering just how much he disliked them.

『 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ 』

Still, Zuko didn’t know exactly when Sokka noticed.

Both of them had insecurities about their appearance, the way pretty much everyone does. For Sokka, it was his gangly limbs (which Zuko loved for how they could wrap fully around him and how easily they reached the top bookshelf) and uneven shoulder that had never healed right (which Zuko would massage when it hurt, and rest his head on when he was tired). For Zuko, it was the scar everyone saw on his face (which Sokka often traced with his thumb, smothered with kisses, and smoothed salve on every night) and the scars usually only Sokka saw, the big one on his stomach and the smaller ones scattered everyone else (which Sokka loved for the way they showed how far Zuko had come, covered with more kisses, and would rub soothingly when they ached after nightmares while murmuring loving words into Zuko’s good ear). But the insecurity about his general appearance and weight was a new one, and he didn’t know when Sokka first realized that it existed.

Maybe it was when he frowned at his shirtless reflection in the mirror, legs dangling off of his side of the bed from his perched sitting position. When Sokka yawned awake and saw him pinching his stomach, cupping its roundness in his hands, he crawled over to where Zuko was sitting wrapped his arms around him from behind, gently lifting Zuko’s hands from his tummy and interlacing their fingers. 

“Nuh-uh, none of that, kuluk,” he said, drawing their clasped hands to his lips to kiss Zuko’s knuckles. “My beautiful, handsome, gorgeous husband.” He pressed more kisses to Zuko’s cheek, wrapping Zuko up in his arms as he drew up to sit cross-legged and pulled Zuko into his lap. Zuko’s frown — not at Sokka’s reflection, but his own — stubbornly stayed put, but it wobbled a little as Sokka nosed down his neck, peppering kisses everywhere he could reach, running his hands along soft stomach and limbs, until finally his face relaxed into a little smile.

Or maybe it was when Zuko cried, upset that his favorite shirt, one of his mother’s old pajama shirts that he’d managed to save from his father’s purge of her belongings, no longer fit comfortably. Sokka gently wiped the tears from his face on his sleeve, making no mention of the copious amounts of snot running down his face either, and handed Zuko his favorite blue hoodie, the one Zuko always liked to steal from his closet. Slipping on Sokka’s hoodie, familiar with the scent of Sokka’s cologne, helped ease the ache in his chest a little — but it wasn’t just the shirt that he was crying about.

It could’ve even been when he noticed the stretch marks on his hips and thighs and panicked, thinking maybe some extra exfoliation would help them fade away, only to be left with red skin that stung when he tried to moisturize it. Sokka noticed the slight teariness in Zuko’s eyes, the frustrated expression, as he vigorously rubbed lotion onto his sore skin. He didn’t say anything — just carefully unwrapped Zuko’s resisting fingers from the bottle as he peeled it out of Zuko’s hands, so that he could smooth lotion into the sensitive areas with delicate, soothing strokes.

It could have been any one of those moments, or one of countless others. The breaking point, however, was probably when they had sex last week. (One of the times when they had sex.)

Or — not sex, exactly, but _foreplay_ , which is a word Zuko hates because it’s far too scientific for the things they get up to — but he doesn’t know what other word to use, and Sokka is a borderline obsessive believer in the importance of foreplay no matter how many times Zuko whines at him to just _get on with it already, Sokka, Agni above_ .

So, as it goes, they were in bed, Zuko lying back on the pillows, arms and legs wrapped tightly around Sokka hovering over him. With his usual intent of teasing Zuko until he whined for more, Sokka kissed and sucked Zuko’s neck, running his hands all over his sides as he moaned, voice slightly muffled from where his chin was buried in Sokka’s hair.

But when Sokka made his way down to suck at Zuko’s collarbone and wriggled his hands between them to reach Zuko’s stomach and rubbed his thumbs there, gently kneading the soft rolls of his body, all of Zuko’s insecurities from the past few months rushed to the forefront of his mind. He felt his eyes become wet, and he sniffled.

Sokka’s head jerked up, a panicked expression taking over his face as his eyes met Zuko’s teary gaze. He quickly scrambled up to cup Zuko’s face in his hands, knees straddled around his hips. 

“Shit, Zuko, what’s wrong?” he asked, voice anxious. To him, there had been no precursor to this — no rational reason for Zuko to cry. “Is everything okay?”

Zuko sniffled again but didn’t respond, only shaking his head slightly, squeezing his eyes shut as a single tear rolled out of the corner of his good eye. 

Sokka uncupped his hands from Zuko’s face. “Kuluk,” he whispered, pulling Zuko up to sit in his lap. When they were fully situated, he continued. “Please, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

Sokka squeezed his hand again, silently encouraging him to speak. Zuko was quiet for a moment before opening his mouth to respond.

“Do you — do you still want me?” Zuko’s voice cracked on the end of the sentence.

When Sokka responded, he seemed shocked. “What?”

Zuko leaned away, drawing his knees to his chest as he covered his face with his hands, tears wetting his palms. He’d been naked in front of Sokka probably hundreds of times, but for the first time in a while, he felt almost uncomfortably exposed. 

“I know I don’t look the same as I used to,” he said, sniffling. “I’ve gained weight, and I can’t help — I just feel like, when I look in the mirror, you have to be pretending that you still want me —” and, oh, he really didn’t want to give a voice to the last part, but he needed to, because the only way to fix this was if Sokka knew what he felt — “because why would you anymore? I don’t look the same as when you fell in love with me, and — and I don’t like how I look now, so why would you?”

“Baby.” Sokka’s voice was soft and far too tender for Zuko to handle right then. “Come here.” He reached forward to stroke Zuko’s hair gently.

Zuko sniffed again and wiped away his tears with the heel of his hand, crawling back into Sokka’s lap and letting Sokka wrap his arms around him tightly, wrapping his own arms around Sokka’s chest and his legs around Sokka’s waist. Sokka rocked him back and forth slightly, humming a soothing little rhythm and rubbing his hands down Zuko’s back until his sniffling subsided, before he spoke, voice earnest, pulling back to meet Zuko’s gaze.

“Baby, I am so attracted to you that it’s almost indecent.” Sokka giggled quietly before he went on. “Like, sometimes I get worried when I look at you in public because you’re so hot I get hard just looking at you sometimes.” When he noticed the worried furrow of Zuko’s brow, unaffected by his humor, his expression became more serious. “I absolutely, one hundred percent want you. A lot of the time too much.”

Zuko stayed quiet. The wrinkle in his brow smoothed out a little, but was still present, along with the voice in the back of his mind wondering whether Sokka was — not _lying_ , necessarily, but perhaps not telling the whole truth. “I still don’t look the same, though,” he whispered. “When you fell in love with me, I was different.”

Sokka seemed to notice Zuko’s anxious worry, the getting wrapped up in his head, and his words were careful as he went on, trying to convey exactly what he meant. “Zuko, baby,” he said, “The reason you don’t look the same as you used to is because you’re _happier_ . You were so skinny when we were younger because things kind of sucked, and you were stressed out 24/7 and you barely ate except for when you had to. And you worked out an unhealthy amount. It wasn’t good.” He wiped at his eyes, now glistening slightly. “I didn’t like seeing you like that. You were in so much pain. And now your life — _our_ life — is so much better. The fact that you’ve gained weight is a good thing, my love.” He paused to gently thumb a stray tear from Zuko’s face, and one from his own, before continuing.

“I didn’t fall in love with you because of your body. I fell in love with _you_ , and I also love your body because you live inside it. I love you, and I love your body because no matter what you look like, it’s you.” Zuko opened his mouth to say something, and Sokka gently shushed him as he kept speaking. “But you also _are_ beautiful. Not just because I love you, but because you _are_ , no matter what I think, and I see that you are beautiful because you are. These are two facts that both exist. Does that make sense?”

“Okay,” Zuko whispered. He felt extremely tired all of a sudden, too tired to argue or try to pick apart Sokka’s reassurances in his brain — right then, all he wanted was to go to sleep wrapped up in Sokka’s arms. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, and leaned to rest his forehead against Sokka’s shoulder. The next few minutes felt fuzzy. Sokka maneuvered him out of his arms and he clambered under the blankets, Sokka spooning around him, and fell into sleep.

『 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ 』

Which brings him to this — Sokka’s art classes. Sokka’s spirits-forsaken art classes. Specifically, Sokka’s figure drawing class.

It’s not that Zuko doesn’t support Sokka’s artistic endeavors. He does! One hundred percent. He hangs Sokka’s art all around their apartment, tucks the little love notes decorated with doodles into his wallet and his journal. He goes to all the shows where the art students exhibit their work. He often watches Sokka draw for hours, even when everyone else (Katara) makes fun of him. 

He just occasionally dislikes the _way_ he is required to help Sokka in this pursuit. Really, even “occasionally” is too wide-reaching of a term. It’s really just this one specific way.

Which started this morning.

『 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ 』

They were in bed, Sokka wrapped up in Zuko’s arms because neither of them will _ever_ miss their turn to be the little spoon and last night was Sokka’s turn in their strict switch-every-night schedule, so. Little spoon he currently was. Until he disentangled himself from Zuko’s arms and turned to face him, head resting on the pillow.

“You know how I have that figure drawing class with Piandao?” he asked. But when he asked, he wasn’t making eye contact with Zuko. Which meant he was distracted. 

Sokka gets distracted like that when he has a plan. And while these plans often go extremely, wondrously well for Zuko, Zuko also trusts his instincts, and he did _not_ have a good feeling about this one.

“Yes . . .” Zuko said slowly, trying to feel out what Sokka was thinking. “Why?”

“Well,” Sokka continued, still studiously avoiding Zuko’s discerning gaze, “I’m not very good at figure drawing, and Piandao said I should probably practice, just on my own, outside of the stuff I have to turn in. But the thing is, figure drawing is best when you have a live model to draw.”

“Okay.” Zuko was wary now. He had a feeling where this was going, but he didn’t know _why_ . Sokka doesn’t make plans without an ulterior motive.

“So I was wondering—” Sokka reached out to run his fingers along soft jawline, and Zuko unconsciously leaned into his touch, eyes fluttering closed. “Could I use you as my model?”

Zuko cracked his scarred eye open. He can’t see that well out of that one, and he knows its slight squintiness makes him look a bit angry, and he uses both those things to his advantage when he can — whenever he keeps his good eye closed, Sokka can tell he’s being a little passive-aggressive.

“Why.” His voice was flat.

“Babyyyy,” Sokka cooed, cupping the side of Zuko’s face in his hand and rubbing his thumb across the cheekbone. It’s a dirty trick, a blatant display of affection that makes Zuko practically putty in his hands. “You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. And it’s good practice to draw a beautiful model. If all my other drawings are half as beautiful as you, I will be the best artist in the entire world. And drawing you makes that much more likely. It’s osmosis.”

“That makes zero sense,” Zuko said, trying to ignore the way his willpower was melting in Sokka’s hands as he ran his fingers through Zuko’s hair.

But when Sokka scooted forward, threw one arm over Zuko and gently scratched his scalp with his other hand and kissed his forehead, Zuko was a goner. Most of the time he loves how Sokka knows just how to play him like a fiddle, even when he pretends not to enjoy it, but right then he really did hate it. 

That did not, however, make Sokka’s fiddle-playing skills any less skillful.

“Fine,” Zuko relented, all vestiges of resistance gone as he closed his eyes contentedly and leaned to nuzzle into Sokka’s chest. “I’ll be your model. But nobody can _ever_ see the drawing.”

“Of course, baby,” Sokka reassured him, voice soothing. “No one will see.”

“Good,” Zuko said, muffled in Sokka’s chest. “If someone does, I will have to kill you.” He drew back to look at Sokka in the eyes. “And you know I can do that. I’m trained in dao.”

“I’d never dao-bt it.” Sokka waggled his eyebrows.

“No.” Zuko covered Sokka’s mouth with his hand. “No.” He could still see Sokka’s evil eyes, so he covered those too with his other hand. “Never say that again.”

Sokka licked his palm, a long, disgustingly wet lick all the way across, and Zuko pulled his hand away with a shriek. “Die!”

“I have to go set up my supplies,” Sokka said. His voice was innocent, but his grin was devious. It was his planning grin.

Zuko did not like it one bit.

『 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ 』

Which brings them to now.

“I feel really stupid,” Zuko mumbles. His hair is damp from the shower he just took while Sokka set up everything, curling slightly around his ears and the nape of his neck. It’s shaggy, almost a mullet if it wasn’t too short, because he’d made Sokka cut it in the bathroom one night when he couldn’t stand the feeling on his neck anymore.

He’s naked, reclined on their unmade bed, lying on his left side in front of the pillows. Sokka, on his hands and knees in front of Zuko, is carefully arranging his limbs into position.

“You don’t look stupid,” Sokka says, pulling Zuko’s right leg so that it crosses to drape over his left thigh touching the bed. “You are my muse, and you look beautiful.”

The idea of being a muse for an artist appeals to the secretly romantic, Love-Amongst-the-Dragons-obsessed part of Zuko, so he graciously decides not to snipe about it. But he still feels weirdly exposed, soft-bellied and vulnerable in front of Sokka, the same way he felt during his freakout in bed last week. 

So he decides to complain to ease his discomfort. “How long is this going to take?”

“Probably a couple hours or so.” Sokka pecks his forehead and scoots back, seemingly satisfied with how he’s positioned Zuko, and swings off the bed. “It’s nothing crazy, just a sketch and some watercolor. You can go to sleep if you want.”

Zuko hums a noise of assent as Sokka perches himself on the stool he’s dragged into the room and placed in front of the bed. In front of him is an adjustable easel with a thick sheet of watercolor paper, and an attached tray that holds a pan of watercolor tubes and assorted other supplies. Sokka finagles with the easel so that it’s tilted at an angle where he can see Zuko properly while sketching.

Zuko does not go to sleep at first. He enjoys watching Sokka make art, and right now is no exception. He watches as Sokka’s eyes flit between him and the easel, listens for the barely audible scratch of sketching on textured paper. Sokka bites his lip in concentration, gaze intense, focused on both Zuko and his sketch. He traces the lines of Zuko’s body in the air with his pencil before transferring them to paper; Zuko smiles at him, almost unconsciously.

But by the time Sokka has adjusted the easel so that the paper lies almost flat and mixed his watercolors on his palette, Zuko’s eyes feel slightly heavy. The light dappled across his body from the open window is warm, and now he feels comfortable in the safe familiarity of Sokka’s gaze. 

His eyelids droop shut; he doesn’t realize that he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up to the mattress shifting as Sokka hops onto the bed, painting in hand.

Sokka sits in front of Zuko, laying the painting before him. He crosses his legs and leans forward, elbows perched on his knees, chin in his hands and a dopey look on his face. “Do you like it?”

Zuko pushes himself up to sitting, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with one hand and taking the painting into his other to rest in his lap. When he fully processes what he sees, he does a double take. “That’s not me.”

Sokka laughs. “Of course it’s you, dumbass.”

The piece is fairly simple — a pencil sketch filled in with washes of watercolor. The lines tracing Zuko’s body on the paper are soft but careful, fluidly curving around his limbs and features. Zuko-in-the-painting is sprawled out on his left side on the bed, the messy unmade sheets pooling around him. His unscarred cheek is pillowed on his right arm, which is crossed beneath his face, the left arm stretching out languidly; a half-smile, somewhere between innocently sweet and mischievously sexy, pulls at his mouth. Light streams through the window, lending a warm glow to his scar and the rolls of his tummy, which juts forward a bit, resting against the bed. The light glazes the softness of his face and arms, the roundness of his ass and thighs. He looks — otherworldly, like a sun spirit, or something else of the sort that he definitely does not see when he looks in the mirror.

Zuko looks up at Sokka. He feels a bit teary-eyed, and he doesn’t quite know why.

“That’s how you see me?” he asks, voice quiet. 

Sokka hums a quiet yes and nods, reaching out to cradle Zuko’s face in his hand. 

“Mình ơi,” he says quietly. Perfectly pronounced. When he’s feeling particularly loving, rather than using the Inuktitut phrases that fall easily from his tongue, Sokka uses the Vietnamese terms of endearment Zuko uses. The linguistic systems are completely different, which makes it hard for them to pronounce each others’ languages properly, but the rare use, the clear intention behind it, makes it all the more precious to Zuko.

Vietnamese isn’t the easiest for him, either; after his mother left, he didn’t get to speak it as much. Mandarin, from his father, comes more naturally; but he loves Vietnamese, and has made a continual effort to practice it. He treasures every single instance Sokka addresses him in his mother tongue — a quiet show of support and a brazen declaration of love.

Zuko started using this phrase about a year after they got married. Mình ơi: _my body, myself_ . _You are as much a part of me as I am_.

Sokka brushes his thumb against Zuko’s scarred cheekbone. “Do you believe me now when I say you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen?”

Zuko doesn’t — not yet. But he also thinks that maybe he could see himself like that a little bit, if he tried.

“One day,” he says quietly. It feels almost like a promise. “One day I will.”

Sokka smiles, easy and bright. He leans forward to kiss Zuko’s forehead, his nose, before reaching his lips. Zuko tries to convey all the words he has trouble expressing out loud, all the love and gratitude. He kisses Sokka fiercely, wrapping his arms around his neck.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I — thank you. I don’t know what to say.”

Sokka pulls back, the dopey grin from before back on his face. “You don’t have to say anything,” he says. “As long as you’re happy, I’m the happiest husband in the world.”

A smile pulls at Zuko’s lips. “I’m also happy when you’re happy. How do you think that works?”

“As long as we’re both happy, we’ll both be happy,” Sokka says, and laughs. “That makes sense.”

Zuko doesn’t have the brainspace to think through that piece of makes-sense-but-also-doesn’t logic right now, so instead he just leans forward to kiss Sokka again, cupping his face in both hands.

Sokka hums happily into Zuko’s mouth before leaning back. “As much as I love kissing you,” he murmurs, just the slightest bit breathless, “I gotta admit, looking at you naked for two hours got me kind of hot and bothered.”

Zuko gives him a look. “Really?”

“I can’t help it,” Sokka bemoans. “I have the hottest husband in the world. It’s cosmically unfair to my dick when you’re just sitting there naked looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Zuko asks incredulously. “Like I just woke up?”

“No,” Sokka grumbles. “All sexy and stuff. Sex on a platter. Hot like grits. Buffy with the body. Whatever Doja Cat said.”

“ _Hot Like Grits_ is a good painting title,” Zuko says thoughtfully, holding up the painting to examine it.

“No, this one is called _Body-ody-ody-ody-ody-ody_ ,” Sokka says. “Or _Bitches Spend A Lifetime Tryna Get This Hot_. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Wait.” Zuko frowns, scrutinizing the painting. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Sokka looks taken aback. “Why?”

“Because you said that you were not good at figure drawing,” Zuko says, the painting fluttering slightly in his hands. “This is not bad. This is really good.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sokka laughs, the furrow in his brow smoothing out. “That was a bit of a lie. I’m really good at figure drawing. Piandao told me I’m one of the best in the class right now.”

Zuko’s face scrunches up in confusion. “Then why did you tell me you were bad at it?”

Sokka grins. “All part of my devious evil plan to make you see how beautiful you are.”

Zuko snorts out a laugh. “You’re the worst,” he says, unable to stop himself from smiling. “I still love you, though.”

“Is that a yes to sex?” Sokka asks hopefully.

Zuko’s feeling pretty turned on too, even if he has been acting as if he hasn’t been half-hard since they started kissing. And he’s had enough of the game where he pretends he doesn’t want to have sex, so he nods. “I guess it is.”

Sokka grins, opening his arms. “Then get over here, baby.”

“Wait a sec,” Zuko murmurs, carefully lifting the painting and setting it on his nightstand, propped up against his lamp. “Can’t ruin your art.”

“Well, the real art is you, and I will be ruining that,” Sokka says. Zuko swats him on the shoulder, and he grins. “Don’t pretend that isn’t what you want.”

“Maybe,” Zuko says, crawling into Sokka’s arms and squirming as he settles into his lap. “Maybe not. But it doesn’t seem fair that I’m the only one naked right now.” He grinds against Sokka’s dick, half-hard under his sweats, to make his point.

“Seems fair to me,” Sokka replies, leaning back as his gaze travels down Zuko’s body. “I’m enjoying it _very_ much.”

“Sokka,” Zuko grumbles, a bit of a whine creeping into his voice. He swats Sokka on the arm. “Be nice to me.”

Sokka laughs. “I am so nice to you! I literally just painted you.”

“That’s—” Zuko is about to argue, before clamping his mouth shut. “That was very nice,” he concedes. “Thank you. But I need you to be nice to me in other ways right now.”

“Mm.” Sokka noses next to Zuko’s bad ear. It’s not very good at picking up noise, so all he can hear is Sokka’s voice, fuzzy and deep. It’s weirdly seductive. “Do tell me how exactly you need me to be nice to you.”

Zuko groans. “Please no.”

“Come onnnn.” Sokka is the one that’s whiney now. “I like it when you talk dirty to me.”

“I’m not good at it,” Zuko mumbles. “You know I don’t like doing it.”

“That’s why you should do it,” Sokka replies. “The more you do it, the better you get at it. And also, the more you do it, the more I become immune to it, so the less you have to do it. That’s two advantages for you.”

Zuko wrinkles his nose, making a face. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes total sense.” Sokka speaks as if he’s made the most logical argument in the world. “Your brain is just befuddled by overwhelming desire for me, so you don’t understand my amazing skills of persuasion.”

“I guarantee you that is not what’s happening.”

Sokka pointedly looks down. “Your dick begs to differ.”

If Zuko was a kettle, he would be steaming right now. “That’s — that’s not the same thing!” he sputters, red-faced.

“Kuluk,” Sokka whispers, this time into his good ear, “it’s exactly the same thing.” He wraps his arms around Zuko, grinding up against him, and Zuko breathes in sharply, muffling a moan in Sokka’s shoulder.

“Sokka,” he breathes, “please—”

“Please what?” Sokka teases, breath hot on Zuko’s jaw, before moving to suck on Zuko’s neck.

“Please — I don’t know, just something,” Zuko whines, grinding down harder. Sokka’s sweats are soft, but it feels strange and he wants something else.

“Okay, baby, okay,” Sokka says, soothing. “I’ve got you.” He maneuvers Zuko out of his lap. “Lay back for me, baby?”

Zuko listens, flopping back to recline half-sitting against the pillows and stretching as Sokka crawls over him.

“I love you,” Sokka murmurs, leaning down to kiss him. Zuko grabs his face to pull him closer, returning the kiss eagerly.

“Mmnh,” Zuko moans, muffled, into Sokka’s mouth. “I love you.”

Sokka reaches to intertwine his hands with Zuko’s, pulling their clasped hands above Zuko’s head and pressing them against the pillows. Zuko moans louder against Sokka's lips, and Sokka pulls back with a glint in his eye.

“You like that, baby?” he asks, grinning.

“You already know I do,” Zuko huffs. “Now kiss me more.”

Sokka hums and leans to kiss Zuko again, tugging lightly at his bottom lip with his teeth. Zuko wraps his legs around Sokka’s hips and arches up against him, trying to find friction, and Sokka grinds his hips down, pulling a happy noise from Zuko into his mouth.

How long they kiss, Zuko’s not sure, but when Sokka pulls back to stare at him, he’s sure he looks like a mess. His lips are probably swollen and his cheeks are likely flushed to high heaven because he feels hot _everywhere_ and a little desperate too. He whines a little, panting and trying to grind up against Sokka again.

Sokka just looks at him with lidded eyes. “Gorgeous,” he murmurs, heated gaze fixed on Zuko’s face. “Can’t believe you’re mine.”

“Believe it,” Zuko says. He kicks lightly at Sokka’s back. “And finish what you started.”

“I am,” Sokka replies. “Trust me, I am.”

He moves to suck at Zuko’s neck while Zuko takes in shallow, quivering breaths. He bites down, pulling a gasp from the man beneath him.

Zuko grips Sokka’s shoulders from where his arms are tucked beneath Sokka’s torso. “I want bruises,” he breathes.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Sokka mumbles into his neck from where he’s soothing over the bite mark with his tongue. “Everything you want, I’ll give to you.” He moves to suck on a spot closer to Zuko’s collarbone, scraping slightly with his teeth, and Zuko whimpers.

Sokka runs his hands over Zuko’s chest, palming and rubbing circles into his nipples. He shifts to kiss down Zuko’s stomach, stopping quickly to stick his tongue in Zuko’s belly button in the way that makes him shriek, before continuing to lavish attention on his stomach and hips, gently massaging as he kisses. When he reaches Zuko’s thighs, he stops, laying his cheek there and looking up at Zuko, who’s gnawing at his lip, chin resting against his collarbone and fists gripping the sheets as he looks at Sokka.

“You really are incredibly beautiful,” Sokka says softly. “It’s not jokes. It’s real. And I don’t care what you say. You’re the most beautiful person in the world to me.”

Sometimes the weight of all of Sokka’s affection for him feels like too much — more than Zuko feels he deserves, especially right now, after the events of the past few hours. He throws his arm over his face so he doesn’t have to meet Sokka’s gaze.

And then Sokka’s crawling back up until he’s hovering over Zuko, gently pulling his arm away from his face, wrapping his arms around Zuko and kissing him hard. When he pulls back, he rests his body against Zuko’s, a comforting weight.

“You are,” he says. “You are.”

Zuko shakes his head minutely, and Sokka reaches to stroke his face.

“Baby, listen to me,” he says. His voice is gentle but firm. “I know what I think, and I know what I feel, and I know what I see. I know I joke a lot, but I would never, ever lie to you about something like that. When I say that you are the most beautiful person in the world, that is exactly the truth. Do you understand that?”

Zuko’s mouth feels dry, so he swallows the lump in his throat — the one that makes him want to protest, to insist that it’s not true, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Sokka loves him. Sokka _loves_ him, and thinks he’s beautiful, and — and wants him, _desires_ him, in all the many ways that he does, has proven it over and over again throughout the course of their relationship in every way Zuko’s looked, so who is he to say no? 

So he doesn’t.

“Okay,” he whispers. It’s not a yes. Not quite. But it’s pretty damn close, far closer than he’s been recently.

Sokka seems to understand this too, and is satisfied with his answer. He presses a lingering kiss to Zuko’s lips, just a little wet, before sliding to kiss his way back down to Zuko’s body.

Instead of stopping at the place where Zuko wants him to be, however, he moves all the way down to the foot of the bed, taking Zuko’s foot in his hand and pressing a kiss to the sole.

Zuko glares. “What are you doing?”

Sokka ignores the dirty look he’s getting. “This is a nice foot,” he says. “It takes you on walks to places with me.”

Zuko squints at him. “Do you have a secret foot fetish or something? You have to tell me if you’re going to do something with my feet. Informed consent.”

Sokka keeps talking as if he hasn’t heard what Zuko is saying. “I also love how I can hear you walking inside, so I know when you’re coming and that I get to kiss you.”

He smiles up at Zuko, and despite being somewhat annoyed, Zuko is always powerless to that smile, so he smiles back, then remembers that he’s supposed to be mad.

“What are you doing?” he repeats. “I thought you were going to suck me off.”

“I changed my mind. No sex. I’m telling you everything I love about your body,” Sokka replies. “And,” he continues loudly when he sees Zuko open his mouth to protest, “you are going to be quiet and let me do it because I love you and I want you to know all the ways I love you. And then _after_ I do that I will blow you.”

“That is — that’s not fair!”

“Oh?” Sokka props his chin in his hands. “Why not? Didn’t you ask me to be nice to you?”

“I — you know that’s not what I meant by nice,” Zuko mutters. “But fine. Just know I do expect an orgasm by the time you’re done.”

“Don’t fret, baby,” Sokka says, patting Zuko’s shin. “You’ll get to come in my mouth, don’t worry. I’ll be the nicest ever. Promise.”

“If you say stuff like that, I’m gonna have to go into the bathroom and do it myself,” Zuko says. “And you won’t get to watch.”

Sokka laughs. “No you won’t. You like my mouth too much.” 

Zuko sends him a death glare. “I would too.”

“Saying that you would go masturbate in the bathroom when you have a perfectly willing husband right here is not the comeback you think it is,” Sokka responds. Then he licks Zuko’s foot and darts away as Zuko shrieks and instinctively kicks his leg.

“I didn’t like that,” Zuko wails. “I don’t like that.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Sokka agrees. “I don’t get the whole foot thing.”

“Then why?”

“I was messing with you. Don’t think I’ll do it that way again though. I don’t think we’re a feet couple.”

Zuko shakes his head violently. “No feet.”

“Can I kiss your foot like I did before though?” Sokka asks. “I need to do this whole thing properly.”

“Fine,” Zuko groans, trying to hide the smile that tugs at his lips at Sokka’s affection. “No licking, though. Or sucking. Or anything more than a kiss.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sokka agrees, then presses a kiss to the ball of Zuko’s foot before sliding his hands up Zuko’s calves. “These are very nice too. I don’t know if I ever told you, but I was weirdly obsessed with your calves in high school. I definitely jerked off thinking about you at those track meets a couple times after we got together.”

“You’ve mentioned that,” Zuko says. “It’s very weird.”

“What is a marriage if not for sharing?” Sokka asks. “I have come to the thought of your calves before. The more you know.”

“That is not what that phrase is supposed to mean.”

“Don’t care,” Sokka says cheerfully, lifting Zuko’s leg slightly and twisting to kiss the back of his knee. “This is a nice spot. I don’t usually touch you here, but I like it.” He smooches it again before gently setting Zuko’s leg down and kissing up to his inner thighs, running his hands across them. “These are perfect,” he says, squeezing softly. “It’s so sweet when Druk sits here when you’re on the couch. And I love falling asleep with my head in your lap. Or riding your thighs. Or both.” He giggles. “Sex and sleep.”

“Please don’t mention Druk when you’re talking about sex,” Zuko groans.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sokka says, looking a bit sheepish. “Duly noted. But I do really love your thighs a lot. And I love touching these,” he adds, running a firm hand along the stretch marks on Zuko’s thighs. “So gorgeous. I love all the little changes in our bodies. Seeing you change makes me think about how long I’ve loved you.” He looks at Zuko, adoration painted plain across his face.

Sometimes Zuko wonders how he got this damn _lucky_.

“Love you,” he murmurs.

Sokka beams. “I love you too, baby.”

He shimmies up slightly, moving to kiss Zuko’s hipbone.

Zuko glares at him. “You missed a spot.”

“Don’t worry, I will come back to _this_ —” Sokka presses his hand, feather-light, to Zuko’s cock, pulling a soft inhale from him— “very soon. Patience.”

“I’m being patient,” Zuko grumbles. But he can’t help but smile a little when Sokka kisses the faint line between his leg and his pelvis, and Sokka pulls a snort-laugh out of him when he licks across there.

“Oh, I really love these,” Sokka sighs, pressing his cheek to Zuko’s hips. “I love how sometimes in the morning, you have bruises on your hips from the night before. And then you let me kiss them even though you’re not actually mad about it. And I love how when we have a kid one day, you’ll put them here when you carry them.”

“We have a child,” Zuko says, intent on keeping up his game of protesting. “I do carry him there sometimes if he doesn’t scratch me.”

“One day you will put our _human_ second-born there when you carry them,” Sokka amends. “Druk likes your tummy more. Speaking of —” he shifts over to kiss Zuko’s stomach. “This is the perfect stomach.”

“What did I _just say_ about not talking about Druk and sex?”

“To be fair I did not mention sex. Just that I think you’re incredibly hot and sexy.” Sokka gives his hip a light pinch. “Also, you brought him up.”

Zuko chooses not to comment. 

Sokka runs his fingers across the star-shaped scar that spreads across Zuko’s abdomen in feathery branches. “And this — I know you don’t like it, but I do. It reminds me of how much you care about the people you love. I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone who cares quite like you do.” He presses a kiss to the middle of the scar, and Zuko smiles just a bit, flushing happily. 

“Also, scars are very sexy. Especially on you, because you make everything sexy.” Sokka grins up at Zuko, stroking his stomach. “And I love laying my head here when we watch T.V. Oh, and it gets me super hot when you stretch and your shirt lifts up a little. Or when you walk around shirtless — spirits, it’s so hard not to jump your bones sometimes.”

Zuko giggles, and Sokka rubs and kisses at his stomach more, kneading gently, until the slightest remains of tension seep out of his body.

“Please don’t be scared of letting me see you, baby,” Sokka murmurs, stroking his side. “I love every single bit of you. This—” he pets Zuko’s stomach and kisses it again— “and this,” he adds, running his hands up Zuko’s chest, nuzzling his face between Zuko’s pecs. “I love when you unbutton your shirt a little bit when you’re too hot and I can see your chest a little. And I love when I put my head here and I can listen to your heartbeat when I go to sleep.” He kisses above where Zuko’s heart is. “The strongest, sweetest, bravest, best heart I know.”

Zuko feels his eyes water a little, and reaches to wipe at them. Sokka’s forehead scrunches in worry and he scrambles up, eyes hovering over Zuko’s face.

“Are you okay?” he asks anxiously. “Is this too much? Do you need me to stop?”

Zuko shakes his head. “No, they’re good tears,” he murmurs. “Please don’t stop.”

Sokka peers at him, trying to decode his expression. “You’re sure?”

“Mm-hmm. I’m sure,” Zuko nods. “Keep going. I like it,” he adds softly.

“Okay, baby.” Sokka looks somewhat reassured, and he presses a kiss to Zuko’s lips. Zuko eagerly returns it, before Sokka slides back down to where he was before.

He runs his hands over Zuko’s chest, kissing the planes of his pecs. “You know I love these,” he murmurs, pinching Zuko’s nipples. Zuko arches into Sokka’s touch, breath stuttered as Sokka rolls a nipple between his fingers. “I know you like them too. I like watching you play with them when I suck you off.”

“Don’t tease,” Zuko whispers, far breathier than he would like.

“But I like to tease you,” Sokka whispers back.

“Keep teasing and I’ll come without you even touching me, which would be really embarrassing.”

Sokka chuckles. “That wouldn’t be embarrassing, that would be hot. But fine.” He kisses Zuko’s collarbone. “I still have a lot to say about what I love.” He moves to run his hands along Zuko’s arms. “I love your arms,” he mumbles, voice muffled as he presses his lips to Zuko’s bicep. “I love how soft they are. It’s so nice when we’re cuddling, or when you hug me before you leave for work. And I love how strong they are too. It makes me feel really safe when you’re holding me. I always feel like nothing can hurt me when I’m in your arms. And you have beautiful hands." He lifts Zuko’s forearm to kiss his wrist. “Perfect for holding. I love watching the way you move your hands when you fidget, too. And I like Druk 2.0,” he adds, petting the dragon tattoo spiralled over Zuko’s bicep.

“His name is Vien,” Zuko grumbles.

“He looks kind of like Druk, though,” Sokka says. “They’re the same color, almost.”

“Red and orange are not the same.”

“Almost,” Sokka counters, shifting to kiss Zuko’s neck. “This is one of my favorite places,” he murmurs. “I think you know why.” He runs his tongue along Zuko’s jawline, reaching his face.

“This — this is my favorite,” Sokka says, beaming, as he cups Zuko’s face in his hands. Zuko smiles, sweet and quiet, up at him. “I love that it's the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I see before I go to bed. The most perfect face in the entire world.” He leans to kiss Zuko on the lips. “Including this,” he adds softly, stroking lightly at Zuko’s scar, running his thumb over the ridges of scarred tissue. “Wouldn’t be my Zuko without it.”

Zuko feels a little bit choked up, seeing all the raw adoration and love on Sokka’s face, even for the parts of himself that he hates.

“I love you,” Sokka whispers. “Even when you don’t. I love you more than anything in the world.”

“I love you too,” Zuko whispers, past the lump in his throat.

Sokka gazes at him, eyes roaming over the lines and features of his face, drinking in every detail. After what feels like forever, he leans down to kiss Zuko again, this time slipping his tongue into Zuko’s mouth until he has Zuko gasping beneath him again.

Finally, _finally_ , Sokka slides down to exactly where Zuko wants him to be.

He runs a hand down Zuko’s waist and kisses the tip of his cock lightly, and Zuko unconsciously lifts his hips as Sokka runs his tongue over the head but no further, looking up at Zuko with mirth in his eyes.

“Sokka, more,” Zuko whines, trying to push up slightly into Sokka’s mouth. “Sokka, you promised—” His sentence cuts off into a sharp inhale when Sokka gently pushes his hips down and takes him into his mouth, and runs his hands down Zuko’s sides, slurping just a bit in the way that makes Zuko go crazy.

“I need — I need you to hold me down or else I’m gonna accidentally fuck your mouth,” Zuko gasps. Sokka hums in assent — an evil move, because it sends vibrations through Zuko’s cock that make him cry out — and presses his hands on Zuko’s hips, holding him in place as he hollows out his cheeks and sucks with abandon.

Everything feels — hazy, and warm, almost cozy; him in Sokka’s mouth, sunlight filtering through the window, washed over Zuko’s body and warming Sokka’s hair as he fists his hands in it, tugging just slightly enough for Sokka to sigh around him, muffled and warm and breathy. His gaze caught somewhere between Sokka and the wall across from him so that he can see the gentle movements of Sokka’s head. Sokka sprawled out on the bed before him, the heat of his tongue running along the underside of Zuko’s cock — the way he shifts so that one arm holds Zuko’s waist down with pleasant pressure while his other hand fists around what’s not in his mouth.

“I’m really — I’m going to come,” Zuko gasps. Sokka twists his wrist and sucks hard, then pulls off just in time for Zuko to come on his face, back arched off the sheets.

As his body relaxes, legs twitching slightly, Zuko feels the wave of tired contentment that always follows his orgasm wash over him. Sokka looks up at him, eyes lidded, as he drags his thumb across his face before sucking it into his mouth. Zuko catches on and pulls him up closer to straddle his thighs, and he uses two fingers to wipe the cum off Sokka’s face. Sokka levels him with a heated gaze as he places his fingers into Sokka’s mouth for him to suck clean, lapping at them with his tongue, before letting go.

Zuko looks down at Sokka’s tented sweats. “Do you want—”

“It’s okay, baby,” Sokka cuts him off, reaching to pet at his hair.

“No, I want you to come too,” Zuko insists. “You can — you can grind up on me, if you want.” He mentally kicks himself for how shy he feels about talking like that, even after just having come on Sokka’s face.

Sokka seems to find it endearing anyway. “I like that idea,” he murmurs, rolling over to wriggle his pants off.

Zuko climbs on top of him, slotting his thigh between Sokka’s legs, Sokka grabbing at his ass and grinning when Zuko whines. 

He presses his leg down gently as Sokka wraps his arms around his back and thrusts up against him; he watches, enraptured, as Sokka’s eyes flutter closed and his mouth opens slightly when Zuko’s thigh rubs against his cock. Zuko’s not nearly as good at taking Sokka apart as Sokka is with him, but he likes seeing the expressions and sounds he can pull from his husband.

“Fuck, baby, right there,” Sokka breathes, canting his hips up and grinding against Zuko’s thigh. “Just like that, so good for me.”

Zuko tilts his head down to kiss Sokka briefly, before laying his cheek on the pillow next to Sokka, face buried in the join between his jaw and the side of his neck as he concentrates on moving his leg just right for Sokka.

“I love you,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Sokka’s ear. He wiggles his hands beneath Sokka’s back to hold him tight.

“I love you, baby,” Sokka mumbles. “Love you so much — oh, right there—” His voice dips into a moan, nails digging lightly into Zuko’s shoulder blades, when Zuko moves his leg down at the same time that he grinds up. He feels the slight wetness of Sokka’s precum on his thigh, lending a slight slickness to his movements.

“Ah, fuck, baby, I’m close—”

“Come for me,” Zuko breathes, hot on Sokka’s ear. “Please?”

He feels Sokka tense up slightly beneath him and flexes his leg, sucks at the sensitive spot under Sokka’s jaw, and is rewarded with a sharp intake of breath from Sokka and fingers digging into his shoulders, along with a spurt of warmth across his thigh and hip. He kisses Sokka’s jaw as he works him through it with soft-moving pressure with his thigh, until Sokka’s grip on his back relaxes.

He kisses Sokka’s cheek and pulls his arms out from under Sokka so he can lean up on his hands. “Was that good?” he asks, a bit shy.

Sokka looks up at him with a relaxed smile. “Really good, baby,” he replies. “Perfect. It’s always amazing with you.”

Zuko buries his face in the space between Sokka’s neck and shoulder. “You always say stuff like that,” he mumbles.

“I only say true things.” Sokka kisses Zuko’s hair. “And you love those romance novels, so I know you like to hear it.”

“So you’re plagiarizing the books I read to woo me?”

“No, no,” Sokka chuckles. “I think stuff, and then I say what I think in the way you like to hear it. Because you pretend you’re grumpy but really you just want to be an Austen heroine.”

“I’m Lizzie,” Zuko whispers.

“Does that make me Mr. Darcy?”

“No, you’re Mr. Collins,” Zuko says, pleased at the outraged huff Sokka makes.

“I am not!”

“Well, you’re not Mr. Darcy, and I’m Lizzie,” Zuko insists. “So then who are you? Colonel Wickham?”

“You’re so mean,” Sokka whines, trying to kick his shin. Instead of letting him move, Zuko spreads his limbs out, blanketing Sokka beneath his weight. He winces at the slight squelching sound of his movements when he realizes Sokka’s cum still on his leg, and sits up to straddle Sokka and reach for the corner of the duvet to wipe himself off. 

“Zuko, no! Not the blanket—”

“We’ll have to wash it anyway,” Zuko shrugs, wiping his leg, then Sokka’s stomach, as Sokka heaves out a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll put it in the wash when we shower. But I want to cuddle right now.” He drapes himself back over Sokka and grabs his hands to wrap around him again.

Sokka squeezes him. “Only because you’re so cute.”

“I’m not cute,” Zuko grouses. “I’m not five, I’m a grown man.”

“Still cute,” Sokka says with a grin, laughing when he scrunches up his face. "And a secret cuddle monster.” Zuko sticks out his tongue, and Sokka bites it.

“Mmmhffh!” he protests, trying to free himself. He feels the rumble of Sokka’s laughter before he lets go, and he pinches Sokka’s shoulder. “What was that for?”

“Just for fun,” Sokka replies happily. “Five-year-old behavior. Now cuddle me.”

Zuko grumbles under his breath about not being five, but wiggles around a bit to get comfortable as he buries his face against Sokka’s neck.

“You know,” Sokka says thoughtfully, breaking the silence, “You can be Lizzie, but I’m not Mr. Darcy. I’m the love of Zuko Tran-Amaruq’s life.” He squeezes Zuko’s arm. “Which is much better.”

“You are the love of my life,” Zuko murmurs, a bit sleepy. He nuzzles closer, and Sokka kisses the top of his head as Zuko licks at his collarbone. He feels — satisfied. Content.

“You didn’t like licking this morning,” Sokka mumbles into his hair.

He lifts his head and wrinkles his nose. “What?”

“When I licked your hand. You told me to die.”

Zuko thumps his head against Sokka’s chest. “It’s different when I do it.”

He can feel Sokka chuckling. “How so?”

Zuko rubs his nose up Sokka’s chest, settling back into his neck. “Just is.”

Sokka laughs again. “Fair enough.”

They lie there in silence for a while, Zuko breathing deeply while Sokka runs his hands absently over his back.

Nestled in his husband’s arms, Zuko thinks vaguely that it doesn’t really matter where his insecurities started. With Sokka, he always ends up in the right place.

╔════════════════════╗

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ♡ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

╚════════════════════╝

**Author's Note:**

> i was gonna title this "he said the body unbelievable" or "and i want your body (and i'll make it obvious)" but taylor swift won. spiritually though those are the titles
> 
> xôi mặn - vietnamese savory sticky rice, usually served as a street food, with a variety of possible toppings
> 
> bánh bèo - small steamed cakes made from rice & tapioca flour, topped with shrimp, pork fat, and oil. originate from huế, a city in central vietnam
> 
> nước mắm - spicy-sweet fish sauce served with bánh bèo
> 
> bún bò huế - spicy beef soup with rice vermicelli that also originates from huế. referred to simply as bún bò by residents of huế and called bún bò huế by those not from the area
> 
> wushu - chinese martial arts/kung fu; firebending is based on the northern shaolin style
> 
> taolu - wushu forms
> 
> kuluk - an inuktitut term of endearment, similar to "darling" or "dear"
> 
> ursa is from central vietnam in this fic because central vietnamese food is the spiciest in vietnamese cuisine, which lines up with zuko's canonical love of spicy food & growing up eating it. also zuko's last name is vietnamese because he changed it to ursa's family name >:) and then also took sokka's last name.
> 
> the way they use their languages for love is kinda based on my own relationship with my parents' language. also i just really love terms of endearment in different languages esp. their etymology.
> 
> i can't find it but there was a post that was like "everyone thinks zuko is mr. darcy but he definitely thinks he's lizzie" and i agree. even if he does come across as darcy-ish sometimes he in no way thinks of himself as darcy. in his mind he is lizzie. he also has warped self-perception though
> 
> don't mind me i'm kind of obsessed with zuko being sokka's muse now. he would love it
> 
> doja cat & megan thee stallion stan sokka supremacy
> 
> talk to me on [tumblr](https://badgerfrogzukka.tumblr.com)!
> 
> feel free to comment, positive or negative :) thank you so much for reading!


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